Monday Night Open Mic, June 8, and Tuesday, June 9

Open Mic, Monday, June 8
Evidently I missed Julie Hill doing an operatic rendition of the words off a condom wrapper. From what I understand she asked for a random object from the audience. Seems as if that could have been the highlight Monday. Damn. It's easy to miss cool stuff if you wander out of that back room.

What did I see that stood out? Rachel Trachtenburg and a friend covered two Beatles tunes (Something and All Together Now) while hula hooping the entire time. Steve Stivola sang an a cappella tune: "I Got a Black Woman in Me," The Scamps played with guitar and bongo-a nice rock feel-the bongo player took an unexpected solo when the guitarist's strap fell off, Kristin from Bellingham, Washington played a couple sweet songs and got a gig. Dan Costello in a moment of beardlessness played a new song, Hard Times. I also played, for once, in order to promote my show the next night. I sang..hmm. what did I sing...I know I did "Do the Berger." Jon normally interprets it with wild, all out Jon Berger dance moves, but this time showed his age and exhaustion in a more subtle, less energetic dance performance. I think I also played my song about Chopping Wood.

Tuesday, June 9, Sidewalk Cafe
The next night, Bob Carlton, Susan Hwang, myself, and Will Lopez played. My appearance had to do with Elastic No No Band's month long residency. As a member of the band, I was asked to do a show. And given the opportunity to invite someone else to play the earlier slot, I asked Susan. She and I have one duet song, Makin' Whoopee worked up that I really like playing and which we did the other night. Preston Spurlock also joined me for a song "New Beatles." Otherwise I mostly played with Trudy Williams who is the bassist for my group, the Key Lime Pie Revue. She and I tried out a new instrumental tune. It needs some polishing, to say the least, but I'm looking forward to developing it and playing it at the OJ All Day Fest on the 19th. Susan did a nice set of her great songs, and it was interesting to hear Will Lopez, who is new to me and seems to have a bit of a jam band-y kind of feel. He played with Alex P. on at least one song, who was doing some wailing guitar work.